Italy has gone to the dogs!

Dynamic duo: Edith Robb with her Cocker Spaniel Daisy who are competing this weekend in Italy with Team Scotland.

Published:10:30Friday 16 May 2014

An Arbroath woman and her trusty companion are currently in Italy competing for Team Scotland in an international dog agility championship.

Edith Robb and her Cocker Spaniel Daisy are in Lignana Sabbiadoro, Udine province in north east Italy for the World Agility Open Championships.

The competition runs from today (Friday) to Sunday, and will see 394 dogs from 32 countries vie over the four World Open Agility titles in the pentathlon, biathlon, the agility games, and the team agility pentathlon.

The pair have been competing for four years now and they train at Crombie Park with Margaret Henderson and are sponsored by Kronch.

Edith said: “This is the first time I’ve competed with the Scottish team. They have a selection day every year and then they pick so many dogs from each height category.

“Well I hope we do well, Daisy was at Crufts two years ago competing in their agility event but there are 32 countries going to this.”

Daisy will take part in the medium category for the biathlon, which will see her tackle a jumping and agility course and then two games for points.

Entering has taken a lot of commitment, as each member of Team Scotland had to fund-raise to pay for transport to Italy.

Edith herself did a sponsored biathlon of 10 miles cycling and 10 miles walking, to help pay for a bus trip to Italy for the team, along with all the associated costs that entails.

She added: “We had to do a lot of fund-raising, it costs a lot of money to send 16 dogs and handlers to Italy.

“We’re travelling by bus to Italy. That’s 30 hours with the dogs in the bus and we will have to stop every four hours for the dogs to give them a walk.”